


Fade Away

by acacia59



Category: The Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:43:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acacia59/pseuds/acacia59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is left after the fire has died down?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade Away

 

I listen to the rain drumming against the window panes of the little office. Its rhythm is trite and predictable and a cold draft somehow works its way under my collar and down my spine. I shiver. Roger Daltrey is late…again.

I remember the time he wouldn’t come into the studio to record vocals on a track, too busy no doubt with other projects, projects we didn’t approve of because we never really thought much of Roger’s ideas. John threatened that he would record the vocals himself and Roger responded that would be fine…but he would provide the bass tracks. However, he was in the next day to do his bit.

The suits had left an hour or so ago and I didn’t really know why I still lingered. I scrawled absentmindedly on a scrap of paper, habitually, nonsense words that floated through my brain and into my fingers. _Roger is fucking late. Waiting for Roger is like being trapped in a sudden, still-winter-icy spring downpour. Love. Pour o’er me. On a dry and dusty road, he is waiting. The water calls to me._

The door opens with the screech of neglected hinges. I jump and sweep my paper fragments to the ground like a guilty schoolboy. We stare at each other for a moment and he seems like a stranger, as alien to me as he was when I first met him, older, stronger and oh, so certain of himself.

He is out of breath with two high splashes of color on his cheekbones. I rise to my feet unsteadily and he crushes his body to mine, his hands twisted in my shirt with desperate need. Then I am lost and wrestling with him in something that in no way resembles a kiss.

“You’re late,” I inform him, breaking contact with a hitching wheeze that barely lets me catch my breath. “What has you so riled up?”

“I shouldn’t listen to people.” It isn’t any kind of explanation but suddenly I miss the contact with his hot mouth and find myself achingly hard. Does why really even matter after all these years?

We pull each other close again and with hands made clumsy with frustrated need manage to rearrange just enough clothing to make fucking physically possible. He crawls onto the impossibly uncomfortable, barrister’s office couch against the wall and I tumble after him, rearranging limbs with muffled curses and groans.

I slip into him like an old glove, amazed that we still fit, amazed that with so much of my body failing me, shutting down piece by piece, this still manages to work flawlessly. He throws his head back, exposing his pale throat and suddenly I can see the young man he once was. Fucking eager young girls by night on tour, his wife on the long weekends at home and me in every gap in our schedule, hurried, graceless affairs in hotel washrooms.

I always thought that we would have time, later, for explanations and apologies. And even now that later has turned into so much more time than I ever imagined, I still delay it one more day.

I am a moment behind when he comes, holding himself rigid and taut as always, and it is enough to finish me, aching and sore. In the comedown moment that follows, I feel passing shame mixed up indelibly with satisfaction and anger.

“We’re too old for this, Pete.” He cleans himself with one crisp white sock, mechanically and detached. I find it vaguely arousing.

I snort and respond dryly, “Aren’t you the one who said we would be rocking in our wheelchairs?”

He hates it when I throw his words back in his face. I always remember his words. He flushes, turning a ruddy shade of red and heaving himself up and off of the couch. He struggles to pull his jeans up from around his knees and goes to the window, his hands curling into fists pressed against the windowsill.

“One of us mad…one of us, me. All of us sad…” I sing at him, my voice high and reedy.

He doesn’t look at me. “Stop.”

I shut up. How many of our problems, our petty squabbles, result from me not knowing when to shut my big mouth. On the bright side, Roger has learned to turn a deaf ear to most of what I say.

“Why the hell are we still doing this, Pete?” He sounds tired…old and lost in old memories like an ancient veteran.

“The music or the sex?” I ask, flatly, watching him not watching me. A muscle jumps in his jaw and he half turns.

“The sex—the music. Fuck, any of it, I suppose.” The overcast light of the fading day casts strange shadows on his face, turning his healthy tan to a sallow pallor. I look down at my hands and see the roundness of my belly, the old man leatheriness of my skin. Uncomfortable, I pull down my faded black sweatshirt and wish I had an answer for him.

“Because it hasn’t killed us yet.” I try to sound flippant. I am not sure if I succeed.

“It’s killed so many already. It used to be dangerous. Now it is only inertia.” Roger is feeling philosophical, his brow knitted in concentration, and for once I don’t try to cut him short. “I am afraid that the rock ‘n’ roll death has passed us by a long time ago.”

I shrug. “I never wanted that death anyhow.” I pause and try to think. “It is all just going to fade away.”

***


End file.
